Advent: Getting Ready for Christmas and the End of the World

The First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the new Church Year. It is also a season of preparation - but preparation for what? On the one hand we are certainly getting ready for Christmas, but in our Gospel passage from Luke 21 Jesus is focusing our attention not on his birth, but on his return. Preparing for Christmas is really a looking back to the one time event of Christ's birth 2018 years ago. But Advent is really also about looking ahead to the time when Jesus will return. This begs the question, do we actually think he is coming back? How we answer this question has a profound impact on our Christian faith and how we look at God and the world.